Basic Instincts

by EGB Fan

New York suddenly seems to be the home of a host of fairytale characters, and some of them are definitely dangerous. On the plus side, they lead Roland to a potential new friend and somebody from his past he really didn't want to see...

Disclaimer: Ghostbusters (c) Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis and Columbia Pictures. John and Eden Spengler are creations of Fritz Baugh. All other original characters are creations of the author.

Extreme Ghostbusters: Basic Instincts

July 2007

The bedroom door creaked slowly open, letting a sliver of light into the room. It was a little after midday, but the curtains were closed and the place was in semi-darkness. Roland Jackson ventured inside first, and found he could only stare incredulously at the occupant of the bed, who was blinking bemusedly back at him.

"I do not believe it," Roland said blankly.

"Whoa!" Garrett Miller pushed the door wide and wheeled his chair through, looking at the figure with obvious amusement. "And you thought it was prank call, Roland. Hey there, Grandma. My goodness - what big ears you have."

The figure in the bed stared unblinkingly back at them, looking faintly confused. Well, why not? He was an oversized jet-black wolf wearing glasses, a long-sleeved nightdress and a grey wig with curlers in it - he had clearly been expecting somebody else.

"We can't find the old lady anywhere," Kylie Griffin said urgently, as she clattered into the bedroom. Then, catching sight of the wolf, she too reacted with, "Whoa!"

"Dios," muttered Eduardo Rivera, entering the room behind Kylie. "You know what this mustmean, Ky…"

"Maybe she's locked in the closet," Roland said helpfully.

Kylie and Eduardo both looked at him scathingly.

"Locked in the closet?" drawled Kylie.

"Yeah, well… that's what he did to her in our version of the story."

"He eats her, Roland," Kylie said firmly. "That's what wolves do - your parents must have bought you the wimps' version."

"Are you telling me," said Roland, "that you read your six- and three-year-old daughters a story in which an old woman is eaten?"

"That's not all that happens," Eduardo said sombrely. "The books that Ky got for them have some seriously nasty versions of a lot of fairy stories."

"Those are the original versions - translated, of course, but still telling the stories as the authors intended them," Kylie said airily. "I don't believe - and Eduardo said he agreed - in sugar-coating things for children due to an entirely incorrect assumption that they can't handle it and why isn't that wolf doing anything?"

The wolf was still just staring at them, eyeing them all in turn, perhaps considering which of them would make the tastiest snack before the little girl in the red hooded cloak arrived as she was supposed to. And then, quite suddenly, the animal seemed to reach a decision. He threw off the bedclothes, tore away the wig and glasses and clawed the nightdress away from his body. Standing on the bed on all-fours, baring his teeth and panting in all his naked glory, the wolf was no longer comical. It dived off the bed; the four Ghostbusters let out a collective yell, and scattered in all directions.

The door cracked and splintered loudly, swinging shut as the wolf's head impacted heavily with it. The animal was momentarily dazed, and then suddenly found itself being blasted with proton streams from four different directions. It howled, glared round at them all, and then finally ran straight out of the proton streams to make a nosedive out of the window.

"What the -?" Garrett said helplessly.

"This has happened before," said Kylie. "Morpheus, the Piper, the big green snake thing that was being controlled by the leprechaun… It's not a complete entity."

"Oh, great," said Eduardo. "So now we have to trace it to its source. How are we supposed to do that?"

"We may have to," said Roland. "Nothing's definite yet. We should get after it."

"What about Mrs. Green?" asked Garrett.

They all looked uncomfortably at each other, and then began a search of the room. Roland went straight for the closet, clearly hoping that an elderly woman would fall into his arms once he opened it, but he was greeted only by a bar of hanging clothes that had been brutally ripped to shreds.

"He can do real damage, this wolf," Roland said quietly.

"Over here," said Kylie, who had sensibly started with the bed. "She's dead - this bed is absolutely covered with blood."

"Oh my God." Eduardo was now crouching on the floor and peering underneath the bed. He sounded absolutely sickened. "There are, um… a lot of bits he didn't like."

They all stepped instinctively away from the bed, staring mutely at the pool of blood, Kylie with both hands clasped over her mouth and Eduardo looking unnaturally pale. Then at last, someone spoke.

"We need to find a number to call - let her family know," said Roland. "Someone can stay here and do that while the rest of us get after that wolf - who knows how many more grandmas he might get to!"

"I'll call her family," said Kylie, glancing at the carriage clock on the dresser by the bed. "Eddie and Garrett can go after the wolf - you have to keep your lunch date, Roland."

"I can call and cancel," Roland said at once.

"There's no need," said Kylie. "You haven't seen her for weeks."

"You know you want to see her, Roland," added Garrett. "And she probably wants to see you too - she is pregnant."

"Yes, I know," Roland said dryly. "You're right - I do want to see her. Are you sure you'll be all right?"

"We'll be fine," said Kylie, pushing him forcibly towards the splintered wooden door. "Just call and tell her to go someplace nearby - then we can radio each other if necessary."

.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

By extraordinary coincidence, Roland's lunching companion didn't live too far from Grandma's house. By the time he arrived at the café he had specified in his call, his younger sister Tara was waiting for him with a cappuccino in front of her, licking chocolate-sprinkled foam from a slender plastic spoon.

Tara herself was looking far from slender. Roland was relieved to see that, in her sixth month of pregnancy, she was finally starting to show. He'd been slightly worried about whether or not all was in order - he was sure that both of Kylie's pregnancies had begun to show at about four months. But, as Tara had once pointed out, she was quite a lot bigger than Kylie - there was more for her baby to hide behind.

"You look stressed," she remarked, as Roland approached. "I'll go order you a coffee."

"No, don't - I'll get it," he said.

"Roland." She rose purposefully to her feet. "It's natural to be pregnant - I'm still perfectly functional. Sit down and I'll bring you a coffee. What would you like to eat?"

Roland wasn't hungry, and told her to order him something small. Within twenty minutes he was jabbing a fork at a hastily microwaved potato that had been swathed in ropey strands of some kind of rubber professing to be cheese. Tara was making better progress with her heavily loaded baguette - she was certainly keeping that baby well fed.

"Tough morning?" she asked carelessly.

"Yeah," said Roland. "Someone… died."

Tara's eyes widened. "Oh!"

"She was eighty-three, but that's small consolation, really, because she… oh Tara, you'll never guess what happened to her, it's just too horrible."

"What happened?"

"Well she was…" - he took a deep breath - "eaten by… a wolf who was apparently intent on acting out the story of 'Little Red Riding Hood'." God, that sounded stupid.

"You are kidding!" exclaimed Tara, though she didn't sound as surprised as she might have. "That's so weird - I had Rumplestiltskin in my apartment this morning."

Roland stared at her for a few moments, sure that he must have misheard her. Then he asked slowly, "You had what?"

"Rumplestiltskin," said Tara, pushing a stray beaded mini-braid behind her ear. "He was in my apartment threatening to take away my baby after it's born."

"What?" exclaimed Roland. "Are you serious?"

"Of course I'm serious."

"Why didn't you call us?"

"I got rid of him."

"You what?"

"I got rid of him," Tara said patiently. "He was saying I had to give him my baby, so I said, 'Why? What have you done for me?' And he said, 'I spun all that straw into gold for you.' So I thought: ok, I know this, and I said, 'Look, I really don't wanna give you my baby - can I keep it if I guess your name?' And he was all like, 'Sure, you've got three days,' and I said, 'I don't need three days - your name's Rumplestiltskin,' and then he got angry and tore himself in two and that was it - he vanished."

When Roland didn't say anything, Tara looked up expectantly. He was just staring at her with his mouth open.

"Told you I could take care of myself," she said.

"Well," said Roland. "That's handy to know, actually. Our proton guns didn't do squat, and if there's more than one of them…"

"You'd better read up on your fairytales, huh?"

"Yeah. So, Tara - how are things with you? Is everything… ok?"

"What, with the baby?" asked Tara, smiling slightly. "Yeah, everything's great. I had another scan last week."

"Really?" asked Roland, brightening instantly. "Do you have a picture?"

"Better than that - they gave me a DVD. Drop by sometime if you wanna see it."

"Oh, I will. And you're ok with money? You don't need me to - "

"No!"

"But you'd tell me, wouldn't you? If you were in trouble?"

"I'm not in trouble," Tara said scathingly. "If Dad can support himself, Mom and seven of us on one income, I can look after the two of us just fine."

"Dad didn't have to pay rent," said Roland. "Or childcare."

"Yeah," said Tara, "but there were seven of us. And anyway, I'm earning more than he was. We'll be fine. I've told you, I'm not relying on a man to get me through."

Roland shook his head despairingly. "I wish you'd just…"

"Roland, please, I'm not having this argument again."

"But Tara, it's his child - he has a responsibility… whoever the hell he is."

"No he doesn't."

"What do you mean, no he doesn't?"

"It's my responsibility," said Tara. "It was an accident, he didn't mean for it to happen, and neither did I - but I've decided to have the baby, so it's my responsibility."

"But Tara…" Roland said desperately. "Never mind about money - that's some guy's child you're carrying! Don't you think he has a right to know?"

"No."

"No?"

"That's what I said," Tara said obstinately. "I already told you - it is not somebody who wants to have a baby. I am the one who's pregnant, and who's nourishing it, and who's gonna give birth, and who loves it more than anything else in the whole damn world. But he… he just wanted somewhere to put his dick!"

Roland winced. "Tara."

"I'm doing him a favour. That would be a shitty thing to do - to decide all by myself that I wanna have a baby, and then go and demand money off the guy."

"Who said anything about demanding money? Tara, you'd be giving him the same choice you had: whether or not to he wants to be a parent. By not telling him, you're taking that away from him."

Tara shook her head, her lips pursed tightly together.

"Well, what about the baby?" Roland persisted. "You're making a huge decision here in not letting it have a father. A child needs - "

"A child does not need a father!" Tara expostulated, causing several heads to turn. She glanced self-consciously around, and then said more quietly, "My father never did one single good thing for me in my entire life - I'd have been better off without him. Yeah, ok, a lot of dads have a positive influence on their kids' lives," she said, as Roland opened his mouth to argue, "but the rest of us can definitely do without. My baby does not need a father. It needs my body to live, and once it's out it needs a home and it needs money and it needs love. Well, guess what - I have all of those things."

"Tara," Roland said, his tone hardening. "If someone was pregnant with my child - "

"You'd be the second person to know," Tara said irritably. "She'd be someone you loved and who you'd sat down and planned out a life with, wouldn't she? You don't…" She cut herself off, closed her eyes and drew in a long breath. "Look, Roland, you didn't wanna hear this, but if you're really not gonna drop it then I guess I'll have to tell you. I can't tell the baby's father, because I don't know who it is."

Roland's jaw dropped. "You don't…"

"Oh, don't look so surprised."

"Well… Tara… if that's the only problem…"

"It is not a problem," spat Tara. "I meant everything I just said, Roland! All right, so - so having a baby and bringing it up on my own with absolutely no idea who its father is doesn't exactly correspond with all the stupid moral codes and, and values we're told are the right conventions by which to live. But who says it's the right way? I've been a part of the nice cosy traditional all-American family that's supposed to be so great, and I'm sure as hell not doing it again! The dad tells everybody what to do, the mom cooks and cleans and squeezes out kids, the boys get to do whatever they want and the girls just concentrate on getting into college so they can find a husband - I am not doing it!"

"It doesn't have to be like that," Roland said imploringly.

"I won't be dependent on a man. Or on anyone!"

"Tara…"

"What?" she snapped irritably.

"Don't you even care who - ?"

"No I don't care who it is. This is my baby - he's just a sperm donor."

"Tara!"

"Stop it!" she yelled. "It's too late now anyway. One of them was just some guy I picked up at a club, I don't even know his last name - I'm never gonna see him again, and even if I do I probably won't recognise him. And the other two - "

"The other two?"

"The other two," Tara raised her voice slightly, "have both been told that the baby definitely isn't theirs. Oh, don't look so shocked. It's easy for you - you're a man. If you want a baby you just have to find yourself an incubator and then she's stuck bearing and raising children with your name - because of course she went through pregnancy and birth only as a means of continuing your bloodline - while you carry on living your life and no one thinks the less of you. But I'm not gonna let some guy do that to me - I'm taking control of my body and my life and my child, and just because it's a little bit different doesn't make it wrong."

For a moment, Roland didn't know how to react. Then he said, "I don't think of women that way."

"I know what you think," Tara said tartly. "If a child doesn't live with a mother who nurtures it and a father who provides for it, all nice and legal and respectable and living under the same roof, then it's being brought up all wrong. You're just like Dad."

On this note she stood up and stormed out, leaving Roland to wonder exactly what he had said to upset her so much. He had made it pretty clear that he didn't think it was ok to be carrying a child and not even know who its father was, but honestly, he thought there was a world of difference between that and implying that he thought his sister should don an apron and confine herself to the kitchen as soon as her baby was born. He just didn't see what was wrong with asking for some sort of support from the baby's father.

And, Roland thought indignantly, he certainly wasn't like their father. Phil Jackson had been furious to learn that his older daughter was pregnant without even being in a steady relationship, never mind married, and he was now compensating for her deviance by enforcing nine-o'clock curfews on his seventeen-year-old daughter Amy. Roland thought this an extraordinarily bad idea; he couldn't help feeling that if Tara had been allowed more freedom as a teenager, she might very well not be pregnant now. The circumstances of her pregnancy were, he thought, not ideal - but at the same time, it was impossible to think of it as a bad thing. She was going to have a baby - Roland's first niece or nephew. Tara was clearly excited about it and, quite honestly, so was he.

"Roland," Kylie's voice suddenly crackled out of his walkie-talkie.

Roland got hastily to his feet, strode out of the café and unhooked the device from his belt. "Go ahead, Kylie."

"Can we come and pick you up yet? We got another one."

.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

"Apparently he's not doing her any harm," Garrett told Roland, as the latter drove the Ecto-1 in the direction of the downtown residential area they had been called to. "It sounds to me like he's just bugging the hell out of her."

"How's Tara?" Kylie asked suddenly.

"Fine," said Roland. "Very healthy. Apparently she had a visit from Rumplestiltskin, but she got rid of him."

There was a long silence. Then Garrett said, "We could do with her on this case, then."

"Yeah," said Roland. "I only hope… what's this woman's name again?"

"Grace Temple," Kylie provided.

"Well, I wonder how well Ms. Temple knows her fairytales - because it sounds to me like this guy could be anyone. Oh, hey - did you track down the big bad wolf?"

"To an alley a couple hundred yards from the house," said Eduardo. "But it vanished."

Roland blinked. "Oh. Well, that's not good - we need to find out where they're coming from. I guess if this guy's harmless, he might even be able to help us."

Once they were in the right street, Grace Temple's house was not difficult to find: it was the one with an armoured knight parked outside it on a gleaming white horse.

"Princess, I implore you!" he was shouting. "Tell me what I must do to prove my love!"

"Oh, I know!" Eduardo exclaimed suddenly, stopping them all in their tracks as they approached the house. "Chita made me read her this one last week - all we have to do is send him on a quest for a golden apple."

"Is it worth trying to shoot him first?" Garrett asked dubiously.

Kylie ventured a little closer and took a PKE reading of the entity, just to make sure it wasn't some crazy guy pulling a stupid stunt. She then un-holstered her proton pistol and sent a short, sharp burst of proton fire at the knight.

"What, a challenge?" he cried, dismounting and placing a hand on the hilt of his sword.

"Did it hurt?" Kylie asked hopefully.

"Pain is but a trifle to me, fair damsel," said the knight, moving his hand away from his sword to lift the visor of his helmet. "Are you responsible, dear heart? Ah, but I see - you wished to attract my attention so that I might save you from these three ruffians."

"Ruffians?" Roland said indignantly.

"They're not ruffians, they're friends of mine," Kylie hastened to explain. "We're here to see the, um, princess. And I don't need you to save me from anything," she added airily.

The knight raised his eyebrows, and asked guardedly, "Are they suitors for the princess? Perhaps by duelling and killing them I can prove my love."

"That's not necessary," said a new voice, and the four Ghostbusters saw that the owner of the house had appeared in the doorway. "They're just… friends. Come on in, please."

Grace Temple was a fairly average looking black woman who looked to be in her late twenties. She had tied back her braided hair and was wearing an old paint-stained shirt and jeans that hung loosely off her solid frame. Once inside the house, and after the introductions had been made, she gestured round at a glistening kitchen filled with mops and sponges, and said vaguely, "I thought I might as well try and get something done while he was out there. Listen, I was watching from the window - your weapon, um… didn't seem to work."

"We're very sorry about that, ma'am," said Roland. "There have already been two prior encounters with fairytale characters such as this - we're trying to trace them to some kind of external source. I don't suppose you have any idea why he might be here?"

Grace looked blank.

"Like anything new or unusual coming into the house, or the street," said Garrett. "Anything that's happened recently even vaguely connected to traditional folk tales or medieval knights - anything at all."

"I really don't think so," Grace said apologetically. "Everything's been completely normal. I'm expecting my daughter home soon, though - you could ask her."

"We will," said Roland. "Is she… fond of fairy stories?"

"No, not really - she's more into sports than books."

"Me too," said Garrett. "Listen, Mrs. Temple - "

"It's Miss."

"Oh, I'm sorry."

"Don't apologise," said Grace. "In fact, forget it - just call me Grace."

"Well, Grace," Garrett said pointedly, "we thought we might try talking to this guy, see if he can give us any idea where he came from - if that's all right with you."

"Are you sure?" asked Grace. "He said something about killing you."

"We'll be fine," Garrett said breezily.

"I think someone should take a look around the house," said Kylie. "There's no reason to assume there's any more here than there was at the last place, but it's as well to check."

"Roland'll take that," Garrett jumped in. "Come on, you two - let's go start interrogating that knight."

"Right, well," Roland said awkwardly, once he and Grace had been left alone in the kitchen. "Shall we start from the top and work our way down?"

.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

"What the hell was that about, Garrett?" asked Kylie.

"Well," said Garrett, "she's cute and not married."

"She's got a kid," said Eduardo. "There must have been a man at some point."

"But not anymore."

"There might be," argued Kylie.

"Well then nothing'll come of it," Garrett said dismissively. "But in the meantime, let's not forget that we have a genuine reason to be out here - so where the hell did he go?"

"We'll search the area," said Kylie, examining her quietly humming PKE meter. "Could be he just upped sticks and went like the wolf, though."

.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

"How old is your daughter?" asked Roland, as he ran his eye over the bookcase in said daughter's bedroom. He tried to make the question sound casual, hoping it wasn't obvious that his curiosity was piqued by the fairly teenage reading material he was seeing. Grace really didn't look old enough to have a teenage daughter.

"Seven," she said. "I guess she is a little young for Meg Cabot - she's not eight until December - but the alternative is her reading noting. Like I said, she's not into books."

"My sisters both read teenage fiction pretty young," Roland remembered, turning away from the bookcase as he came to the conclusion that there was definitely nothing there written by the likes of Andersen or the brothers Grimm. "The older one's pregnant now. Not that I think there's a connection," he added hastily.

Grace laughed. "Well, I'm not going to worry about that just yet - Natalie thinks of boys as just people to throw a basketball around with."

"Basketball, huh? Maybe she'd get on with Garrett."

"I'll bet you're excited about your sister's baby," Grace went on chattily. "Is it, um… the first in your family?"

"Yeah," said Roland, not catching the slightly awkward note in her voice, or the curious look she was giving him. "Almost certainly not the last, though - there are seven of us. But this one was… a bit unexpected, really. She's… quite young."

"I was only twenty when I had Natalie," said Grace. "But I was definitely ready."

"Well, we all mature at different rates."

"Yeah. Too bad my ex wasn't ready… but you don't wanna hear about that. Do you want to take a look in my bedroom?"

"Hmm?" Roland went blank for a moment, and then suddenly became aware of the weight of the PKE meter in his hand. "Er, I'd like to, yes - if you don't mind."

.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

"Where do they go?" fumed Garrett, as he and his two companions traipsed back towards Grace's house. "We can't charge her - it's no good pretending we got rid of him in case he comes back."

"Isn't this a little like the J.N. Kline case?" asked Eduardo.

Kylie shook her head. "They can't be the Vathack - these stories were written centuries ago, but the entities have only just shown up now."

"Garrett?"

Garrett instinctively stopped moving when he heard his name. The voice was familiar, but he couldn't quite place it. When he turned his chair around, he saw that he was being approached by a fair-haired man in his twenties and an olive-skinned little girl clutching a basketball. Garrett stared blankly at the girl for a few moments, even though it was clearly the man who had spoken… and then suddenly, he recognised him.

"Spence!"

"Aw man," muttered Eduardo, grabbing Kylie's elbow. "Come on, let's go."

"What are you doing here?" asked Spencer Daniels, Garrett's old friend from Brooklyn. They had been best friends at school, and almost rediscovered this relationship shortly after Garrett started college - but then Spencer's new friends had made that impossible.

"I'm on a case," said Garrett, somewhat guardedly.

"Look, man, I'm… I'm sorry about all of that, that stuff," Spencer said awkwardly, cutting a glance at the little girl. "You were right - it wasn't me. Oh," he said, catching the curious look that Garrett was giving the child. "This is my daughter Natalie."

"No way!" exclaimed Garrett, smiling warmly at Natalie. "You had a kid - I don't believe it. Hi, Natalie - I'm Garrett. I'm an old friend of your dad's. No doubt you've heard all of his impressive stories about me."

"No, but I've seen you on the news," said Natalie. "You're a Ghostbuster. Why did the other two go into my house? Do we have a ghost?"

"Well," said Garrett, "you did have. It's… gone now."

"What kind of ghost?" Spencer asked sharply. "Are they in any danger?"

"No, and they never were," said Garrett. "It's harmless - just annoying. But it's gone now, like I told you."

"So… we can go inside?" asked Natalie.

"Yeah," said Spencer, putting his arm around Natalie and walking her towards the house. "I wanna hear about this harmless ghost."

.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

"He has a mixed race little girl with him," Kylie was saying to Eduardo, in the middle of Grace's hallway. "He's probably her father. Hell, that's probably Grace's kid."

Eduardo's eyebrows shot skyward. "I don't think so, Kylie."

"That's the one Garrett knew from Brooklyn," Kylie said reasonably. "I said at the time he wouldn't hang out with people like that - Spencer just fell in with the wrong crowd."

"That's no excuse."

"It was a long time ago. He was just a kid. Didn't you ever do anything stupid when you were a kid?"

"I didn't spray-paint swastikas on synagogues, and I didn't stare down black people just to scare them out of my peripheral vision, and I didn't tip disabled people out of their - "

"Grace, Roland - any luck?" Kylie asked loudly, as the back door clicked open.

"None," said Roland, following Grace into the hallway.

"No? Too bad - now let's get outta here," Eduardo said quickly.

Kylie let out a sigh. "Eduardo…"

"Hi, honey!" Grace said suddenly, beaming past the three Ghostbusters towards the open front door. "Did you have a good time?"

"Great," grinned Natalie, passing her basketball from hand to hand as she sauntered into the hallway. "I passed Dad six times!"

"Good one, baby," smiled Grace, tousling her daughter's tightly curled hair and not noticing the I-told-you-so look Kylie was throwing at Eduardo. "What are you skulking around out there for, Spence? Come in and have a drink before you go."

"Ah, Grace, I'd better not," mumbled Spencer, lurking in the shadow of the porch.

"Go on, Spence - we're going to have to try and find that ghost, so we're leaving anyway," said Garrett. "But… be in touch, ok?"

Spencer smiled slightly. "Yeah, ok."

"Come on, Dad - we'll make hot chocolate while Mom deals with the Ghostbusters," said Natalie, smiling as she dragged her father towards the kitchen by his wrist.

"Yes, well, he's actually disappeared for the moment," said Kylie, talking unnaturally loudly in the semi-conscious hope of distracting Grace from the slapped-in-the-face look Roland was now wearing. "We're going to try and track him down. If he comes back, just call us straightaway, all right? In the meantime we'll let you know our progress."

"All right then," said Grace. "Roland explained to me that this isn't as straightforward as it might have been. I'm sorry to be so much trouble."

Roland's three colleagues all expected him to tell her not to apologise, but he didn't, so Garrett did the honours: "Don't apologise, Grace - it's hardly your fault. Natalie's a great kid, by the way. Y'know, Spence and I were friends in high school."

"Were you really?" Grace asked interestedly. "That's weird - he never said he knew the Ghostbusters."

"Well," said Garrett, cutting a surreptitious glance at Roland, "these three hardly know him at all. Come on then, you guys - we'd better get on with it."

He prepared to leave, and so did Eduardo and Kylie, but Roland continued to stand immobile in the hallway.

"Hey," said Eduardo, touching Roland's arm lightly. "Come on, man."

"I don't get it, Eduardo," said Roland, once they were a good hundred yards away from the house. "It just doesn't make sense."

"Ky says he probably did all that shit just because he fell in with the wrong crowd as a kid," said Eduardo. "And she's probably right. It's no excuse, but he's not racist."

"No, he's not," Garrett said firmly, coming to a halt when they reached the Ecto-1. "He never was. No one was more disappointed than me when he did all that shit with the synagogue - I mean, God, I completely lost touch with the guy for damn near ten years! But I know his heart was never really in it, and he's definitely sorry now."

"Sorry doesn't make it ok," snapped Roland.

"I never said it did."

"And how can you be so sure, anyway? Because he had a kid with a black woman? She as much as admitted to me he doesn't care. Why is he only here on weekends, huh?"

"Don't be ridiculous," said Garrett. "He does care. Any idiot can see he loves that kid like crazy - but they're not all living together because Spence and Grace were young and they've realised they're not in love so it's better for them to live apart. He wouldn't have stayed with her if she was white, Roland - it's just that he doesn't believe a traditional nuclear family is the only way forward."

On this note, Garrett pulled open the rear doors of the Ecto-1 and made his way inside, reminding Roland very much of his encounter with Tara a little over an hour earlier.

"I think he's right, Roland," Kylie said gently. "Spencer did some really shitty things in the past, but he seems to be getting on fine with Grace now, and he must love his kid."

Roland shook his head defiantly. "She should know what he did."

"It's not your place to tell her," Eduardo said suddenly, taking both Roland and Kylie by surprise. "We all make mistakes, and we don't want them thrown back in our faces."

"Come on, Roland," said Kylie, as Eduardo climbed into the Ecto-1. "Forget about them - they're not your responsibility. Let's just go, can't we?"

"Yeah," said Roland, sloping towards the driver's side door. "Y'know, Kylie, I did not want to see him - I'm really not having a good day. I had a fight with Tara."

"Oh, well, she's touchy at the best of times," Kylie remarked. "I imagine it's even easier to rattle her cage when she's pregnant. I wouldn't worry about it, Roland - you'll be able to make it up the next time you see her."

.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

Garrett soon had to shoot off to his other job - he worked shifts in a hospital as a physiotherapist. The other three Ghostbusters returned to the firehouse, where Roland sat in the rec room with some paperwork and quietly simmered while Eduardo and Kylie took their two young daughters out for a late lunch. When they returned, Roland was still simmering, and no one quite liked to disturb him.

"It's time we filled in those forms, Rosie," Kylie said suddenly, looking vaguely around for the brown envelope she knew she'd left somewhere. "Ah - there it is."

She sat down on the sofa and worked her way down the form, always asking Rose the questions she knew the answers to: her name, her birthday, was she a boy or a girl. Rose and Garrett's son Max were both going to start at preschool in a little over a month's time, although neither of them was really suited to education; Rose was clear evidence that hostility towards authority figures was genetic, and Max was just too crazy to know where he was or how he was supposed to behave most of the time. Garrett's mother-in-law had phrased it politely when she said the coming September would be "interesting".

"Ethnicity," Kylie said aloud, moving her pen down the long list of check boxes. "I think you're 'mixed other', honey. Oh, hold on…" She looked over her shoulder at where Eduardo was standing. "Eddie, she's mixed white and Hispanic, isn't she?"

"Um." Eduardo, feigning uncertainty, leaned over the back of the sofa and held his arm next to Kylie's. "Yeah."

"Ha ha," Kylie said sarcastically. "It just took me by surprise - I'm sure Chita was other. They must have updated the form."

"What do they want to know her ethnicity for anyway?" Roland asked suddenly.

Kylie looked up in surprise. She had almost forgotten he was there. "I don't know."

"Why does it matter?"

"It doesn't."

"I can't believe Garrett's seriously thinking of reconciling his friendship with that… that… Spencer person."

"Oh, I see," said Kylie. "Well Roland, you remember how disappointed Garrett was when he found out Spencer was one of the ones behind the graffiti. They were friends - he just wants to give him another chance. The guy's obviously sorry."

"How could he know all that stuff that he told me about them being too young?" Roland went on heatedly. "Spencer didn't have time to tell him all that, surely - and he wouldn't have anyway, not out there in front of his daughter. Garrett was making it up."

"He was making a sensible guess," retorted Kylie. "It seems the likeliest explanation to me. Roland, if he was really racist, he would not have had a child with a black woman."

"Who's racist?" demanded Conchita, who until that point had been sitting quietly with a pad of paper, sketching out a tranquil lakeside scene involving a lot of birds and flowers.

"Oh… no one," said Roland.

"No, tell her," said Eduardo, with a slight hint of challenge in his tone.

Roland sighed heavily. "An old school friend of Garrett's. We had an encounter with him about ten years back; he and his friends gave your dad and me a lot of strange looks, in between defacing a synagogue with anti-Semitic graffiti."

"Who's anti-Semitic?" a new voice demanded, and Roland looked up to see that Egon Spengler had quietly entered the room with his eight-year-old twins, John and Eden, who just happened to have a quantity of Jewish blood in them.

"Oh God," muttered Roland, burying his face in his hands. "No one, John, forget it," for John was the one who had spoken.

"Yes, well, anyway - we need to start trying to find out where these fairytale characters are coming from," said Egon, clearly eager to move the conversation along. "Janine just had a call from a man who makes coffins - apparently the Seven Dwarves have been to see him and commissioned a coffin made out of glass."

"What a waste of money - she's not dead," said Eduardo.

"She needs the coffin, though, so she can get bumped around until the apple gets shaken out of her throat," Conchita said sagely. "Who else has there been?"

"The wolf from 'Little Red Riding Hood'," said Kylie; "the prince from 'The Golden Apple' and Roland's sister has seen Rumplestiltskin."

"You mean Tara? Did he want to take her baby?" asked Conchita.

"Yes," Roland said blankly.

"How long now before she has it?"

"Three months."

Conchita wrinkled her nose. "That's ages," she complained.

"You didn't tell me this, Roland," said Egon. "Where did she see him?"

Roland thought for moment. Had Tara told him where this encounter had taken place? He was fairly sure she'd told him that she was at home, so he said, "In her apartment."

"Then I'd like you to go over there and investigate immediately," said Egon. "Eduardo and Kylie, I want you to go and talk to the coffin maker."

"Why would anyone wanna make coffins for a living?" asked Eduardo.

"Somebody's gotta do it," said Kylie, hugging Rose tightly and then crossing the room to Conchita. "We'll see you soon, girls - be good for Egon and Janine."

.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

"Nothing says I'm sorry like service station flowers," Tara said dryly, though smilingly, as she opened the door.

"Well," said Roland, giving her the flowers, "I am sorry."

"Yeah, so am I." She stepped aside to allow him entry into the apartment. "I guess I overreacted just a little - but it's ok, I'm allowed, I'm pregnant."

It suddenly occurred to Roland that it might be better not to reveal that he was visiting his sister purely on work business. He wasn't in uniform, but he did have a PKE meter hooked to his belt - so he yanked his t-shirt down over it and said casually, "So when do I get to see this DVD?"

"It's in the player - go turn it on," offered Tara. "I'll get you a Pepsi."

Tara's baby was a very fuzzy, dome-headed blob. The DVD contained several minutes' worth of footage of it wriggling a bit, lying still, wriggling some more… For a long time, Roland's eyes were glued to the screen. Then it occurred to him that the baby wasn't really there at all; it was next to him, inside its mother. He turned his head and saw that Tara was gazing mistily at the screen, smiling and clutching her bump protectively.

"That's amazing," said Roland.

"Yeah," Tara said distantly. "Oh, it's kicking - you want another feel?"

Roland had felt the baby kicking plenty of times before, but he was always willing to do it again. Quite honestly, this was the most excited he had ever felt about anything in his entire life - it was more exciting even than when he had got his doctorate. Suddenly he couldn't help wondering how it would feel if this were his child - inside a woman who wasn't his sister, of course. But that was a pretty broad specification. He remembered Tara's wild accusations about him seeing women as incubators, and quickly started trying to push his thought process along a bit.

"Tara," he said slowly. "I've got a little problem."

Forgetting all about the real reason for his visit, Roland began to voice his concerns about Spencer and his relationship with Grace and Natalie.

"Well," Tara said evenly, once the whole story was out, "it sounds to me like he was just a dumb stupid idiotic kid who bowed to peer pressure. He can't actually be racist if he had a child with a black woman, surely - and it sounds to me like he loves his kid and he's getting on fine with her mother."

Roland wanted to point out to her that he had just described a child with two parents that weren't co-dependent but were both in their daughter's life - but he restrained himself, saying instead, "That's what everybody says."

"But," Tara went on, "that doesn't make what he did ok. I think this Grace should know about his past."

Roland blinked in surprise. "Do you?"

"Of course I do. The guy has a mixed race daughter, and what if he falls in with a gang of bigots again? What if they start picking on Natalie - a seven-year-old girl? If the mom's going to let him be a part of the kid's life, she should know these things about him - it's huge. It would be huge whether she was black or not."

"Yeah, I guess you're right," said Roland.

"You want to tell her about it, Ro - I can tell."

"Do you think I should?"

"Well, that's another matter entirely. I mean, it's really not any of your business."

Roland scowled. "That's really helpful, Tara, thanks."

.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

"So I guess Snow White's shortly to get engaged, then, if she's just recently died," Kylie surmised, as she and Eduardo scoured the coffin maker's storeroom in search of anything even vaguely useful. "I'd be interested to go to her wedding ball and see the prince forcing her stepmother to dance in white-hot iron clogs until she drops dead. I mean, what a sick idea - I wonder how they came up with it."

"The Disney version's nicer," said Eduardo, who was quietly getting a bit freaked out by all the coffins. "Oh, look - I'm getting a reading off this… really little rock."

"It's gold," said Kylie, snatching the pearl-sized nugget from between Eduardo's forefinger and thumb. "One of the dwarves must have dropped it."

"That was careless."

"Come on then - we'll take this back to Egon."

"Is that it?" Eduardo asked irritably. "Is that all we came for?"

It looked very much as though the small gold nugget was all they had gone for, until their PKE meters both buzzed into life just as they were about to climb into the Ecto-1. Kylie and Eduardo both looked up in surprise, and saw a very pretty young woman blinking shyly at them from behind strands of long dark hair.

"Eugh - she's creepy," Eduardo remarked. "Who is she?"

Kylie shook her head slowly, not taking her eyes from the woman. "I don't know."

The young woman approached them shyly, sweeping back her great mass of hair, and gazed longingly at Eduardo with watery eyes. She then looked at Kylie; her lip trembled, and tears began to trickle down her face.

"Who are you?" Kylie asked gently.

The young woman shook her head, and turned her face away.

"It's the Little Mermaid," Kylie said decidedly.

Eduardo flinched. "Aw man, I hate that story. So what do we do now? I could go over there and kiss you - that might get rid of her."

"No!" exclaimed Kylie. "She'll kill herself! Poor kid, she's so tragic. Didn't anyone ever tell her that men aren't worth killing yourself over?"

"So let her kill herself," said Eduardo, keeping his eyes unblinkingly on the sobbing girl, as though he thought she might turn on him at any moment. "Look how miserable she is - and don't forget that every step she takes is like the pain of a thousand knives."

"Why does Rose like that one so much?" Kylie wondered aloud. "It doesn't look to me like she's going anywhere, Eddie - perhaps she can help us. Try to get her to show us where she came from."

Eduardo started. "What? Why me?"

"Well, you're her prince."

"But I'm not - why does she think I am?"

"Eduardo…"

"All right, all right." He stepped away from the car, hesitated and then turned round to ask, "Does she have a name?"

"She's not the Disney Little Mermaid," said Kylie. "So no."

Eduardo turned back to the young woman and walked towards her. As he approached she lifted her head and gazed at him with huge, childlike eyes. God, she was creepy.

"Hey," said Eduardo. "Can you, um… show us how you got here?"

She looked over Eduardo's shoulder at Kylie, shook her head and then turned away, beginning to cry again. Eduardo looked helplessly behind him, but Kylie just frowned at him and mouthed irritably, "Go on!"

"Hey," Eduardo said again.

The tearful young woman looked at him.

"Can you show me?"

At these words she broke into a smile, grabbed Eduardo's wrist and began to walk briskly away from the Ecto-1. She wasn't walking as though she was in any pain, but when Eduardo looked at her face he saw that her eyes were shining with yet more tears, and her features contorted slightly with every step. He then looked over his shoulder at Kylie again. She was still standing by the Ecto-1, as though she planned just to stay there and wait for them. However when Eduardo and his newfound friend were almost out of sight, she began to follow at a discreet distance.

.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

When Roland arrived back at Grace's house, he saw that Natalie was playing a raucous game of baseball in the street with some other kids. He was glad about that - she wouldn't want to overhear what he was about to say.

"Oh, hi," Grace smiled warmly, when she opened the door to him. "Roland, wasn't it? Come on in. Do you have some news for me on my case?"

"No," said Roland, now seriously contemplating chickening out. But how could he? He was there now - he had to say something. "Has… he been bothering you again?"

"No, not at all."

"Good, good."

"Would you like a drink?" asked Grace.

"Oh, no thank you," said Roland, even though he rather did want something to wet his mouth - he just couldn't imagine the imminent conversation taking place over a friendly cup of coffee. "I just… I wanted to talk to you."

"Oh?" Grace raised her eyebrows, looking politely interested.

"About Spencer."

Her raised eyebrows fell into a frown. "About Spencer?"

"Yes. How much… do you know about him?"

Grace crossed her arms defensively, her entire body tensing. "Everything."

"Well I don't think you do."

"Look," said Grace. "You don't know me, and you don't know Spencer either, from what he was saying earlier. We were together for two years, we were even married for one of them - there's nothing you can tell me about him that I don't already know."

Roland opened his mouth, and then closed it again. He had wanted to ask what had made them split up - could a revelation about Spencer's behaviour in the past have been the cause? But he stopped himself just in time - that really was none of his business.

"He's committed some crimes in the past," said Roland. "Did he tell you about that?"

Grace said nothing.

"Hate crimes," he went on. "Racist graffiti - that kind of thing."

That kind of thing? Oh dear - Roland knew he shouldn't have said that. The graffiti was the only thing, as far as he was aware.

"Spencer is not racist," said Grace.

"He has the potential to do a lot of harm," said Roland.

Grace's scowl deepened. "How is this any of your business?"

"I'm just worried about you. You and Natalie."

"Why? You don't know me, or my daughter, and you don't know him - but it might occur to you that anyone with a mixed race child probably isn't racist. I hope you don't think Natalie was the result of… of some kind of racially motivated gang rape!"

"Of course I don't think that," Roland said helplessly. "I just thought you ought to know. He can be dangerous - he and his friends released a Golem."

"A what?"

"It's a - "

"Oh I don't care!" snapped Grace. "I can't believe this! I call you people to my home to perform a service and this is what I get! If I'd sold you a car part, would you expect me to knock on your door the same afternoon and subject you to… to moral judgements and wild accusations about your friends and family?"

"Well, I - "

"You'd be pretty pissed off if I tried it, wouldn't you!"

Roland sighed heavily. Clearly nothing good could come of this - but at least he had said his piece, and done what he had gone to do.

"I'll go," he said.

"Yeah," said Grace, turning sharply away from him. "You do that."

As he saw himself out of the house, Roland felt extremely disappointed - more so than he ever would have expected. That was only the second time he'd met her, but for some reason he really didn't like the idea of Grace Temple hating him. But, he asked himself bitterly, what did he expect? Shocked tears? A comforting arm around her shoulder? Profuse thanks for letting her know? Vows that Spencer would never see Natalie again? Roland was quietly furious with himself - he hadn't thought it through at all. He had only thought of the way Spencer's friends looked at him nearly ten years ago, and imagined how much worse it would have felt if he had been as young as seven.

.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

"This is the alley where we lost the wolf," Eduardo realised, once the emotional young woman had walked him a good mile or so.

The mermaid smiled warmly at him, walked to the end of the alley, thrust her arm at the wall and - predictably - it vanished. She then put her whole body into the invisible force field, only to emerge again seconds later. She began beckoning to Eduardo, and when he didn't move, she sprinted towards him and began trying to drag him by the arm.

"No," said Eduardo, easily resisting her inferior strength. "No, I can't."

Her eyes began to fill with tears again, and then she looked startled as Kylie appeared and strode determinedly into the alley.

"That's amazing," she proclaimed, marching straight towards the portal, or what she assumed was a portal to some ghostly dimension or other.

"Kylie!" Eduardo wrenched himself free of the mermaid's grasp and ran after Kylie, grabbing her elbow just in time to stop her from trying the portal with the tips of her fingers. "Please don't - you never know what might happen."

"They can get in and out," argued Kylie, gesturing to where the mermaid stood at the end of the alley.

"You're not them. We have to tell Egon about this, and give him that dwarf gold."

"Yeah, well… I guess you're right," Kylie relented, subconsciously raising her hands to his shoulders. Then, looking directly at the mermaid, "What are we gonna do about her?"

Eduardo shook his head. "What can we do?"

The mermaid, meanwhile, never took her eyes away from them. They both felt rather than saw her gaze move down to where Eduardo's hand was touching Kylie's arm - and then suddenly, the lonely figure just began to fade away.

"What the hell?" exclaimed Kylie. "That doesn't happen in the story!"

"Well," said Eduardo, "there's no ship for her to throw herself off."

Kylie shook her head slowly. "What the hell is going on here?"

.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

Spencer was very eager to start rekindling his friendship with Garrett. Surprisingly so, in fact. The two of them had exchanged phone numbers outside Grace's house, but Garrett hadn't expected to hear from Spencer that same day, or to be having coffee with him in the café at the gym the very next morning.

"Have you got a window open at the weekend?" asked Garrett, after a few minutes of light and shallow conversation. "I want you to meet my wife and son."

Spencer looked faintly surprised. "You had a son?"

"We adopted him."

"Ah. How old is he?"

"Three," said Garrett. "But we've only had him a year."

"And how's that been?" asked Spencer.

"Oh, great, fantastic," said Garrett. "We hadn't planned on trying to get ourselves a kid any time soon, but the opportunity to adopt him just fell into our laps. We loved him as soon as we met him, and we haven't looked back since."

"It can't have been easy, though, suddenly having a toddler in the middle of your lives."

"No, Max certainly isn't easy. He's had some developmental problems, and some emotional problems, he sometimes gets anxious - and he needs a lot of attention. But he's a great kid, and he's really gotten better while he's been with us."

"Developmental problems and emotional problems," Spencer said blankly. "Wow. Makes looking after Natalie seem like a breeze."

"She seemed like a good kid when I met her."

"She's a terrific kid - she's never caused anybody problems her whole life. I shouldn't have gotten so spooked when Grace told me she was pregnant, but I just wasn't ready for a kid." A pause, then, "I guess if I'm honest, I wasn't really ready for marriage either."

Garrett raised his eyebrows. "You and Grace were married?"

Spencer nodded.

"Why, if you weren't ready?"

"Ah, well." Spencer's coffee had just been quietly steaming in front of him, but now he picked it up and took a long sip. "This is going to sound terrible, but a lot of it had to do with me wanting to sleep with her."

Garrett blinked, not knowing quite what to say.

"But it's not as bad as it sounds," Spencer went on hastily. "We'd been together a year, and I wanted to, but she said she wanted to be married first, so I thought: hey, I love her - why the hell not? I did love her, Garrett. I mean, it wasn't head-over-heels can't-live-without-her love - but at the time, it felt like the real thing. So I asked her to marry me."

"And this was… how long after the Golem incident?" Garrett was curious to know this; according to his calculations, Natalie had been born only two or three years after this last encounter with Spencer, when he had been so weak and immature.

"I met her a few months after that, at her brother's birthday party," said Spencer. "I made friends with Luke right after the whole… Golem thing. Then when I met Grace, after we really started to connect, I decided to tell her about what I did - otherwise I would have felt like I was deceiving her. I still feel bad about it, you know - I didn't even feel better after she said it didn't matter to her what I'd done in the past."

"How come you made friends with her brother?" asked Garrett.

"Well, I kinda had to," said Spencer. "I was all out of friends. I mean, you didn't want anything more to do with me, and I thought maybe I'd stick with Trey and Charlie and their friends for a while and see if they'd learned their lesson, but after about a week it became obvious that they hadn't so… so I made some new friends."

"Did you decide to make friends with a black guy on purpose?" Garrett asked bluntly. "You know - to, um, ease the guilt?"

"No," said Spencer. "Well, not consciously. We're not friends anymore, though - not since I, er, divorced his sister and abandoned his niece."

"You didn't abandon her," said Garrett.

"Well… no, not entirely, but I… See, Grace got pregnant about a month into the marriage, and it completely freaked me out. I guess it's sort of ironic really, after the whole… sex issue. I'd gotten her pregnant and I couldn't handle it. I started… being pretty lousy. I stayed out late, I didn't go to any antenatal classes or scans or anything, I hardly even talked to her… And then one day she asked me to leave."

"But you're ok together now, though," said Garrett. "What happened?"

"Well, she was seven months pregnant when she kicked me out. Then a couple of months later she called and said, 'Spence, my water just broke. Do you want to come and witness the birth of your child?' So I went, and she had Natalie, obviously - and I loved her, Garrett, right from the start, I really did," Spencer said, his expression softening. "Grace let me move back in, but I was a lousy father. I had absolutely no idea what I was doing, and my relationship with Grace… well, that had all gone to hell months ago."

"So it's Natalie's fault," said Garrett.

"Well… no… kind of. There's no way of knowing whether Grace and I would still be together now if Natalie hadn't happened, but she did, and it became obvious that I just wasn't ready for any of that. We didn't love each other anymore, but Grace said she wanted me in Natalie's life, and now we're… we're really good friends again."

"She sounds like a great lady," remarked Garrett. "A lot of women would have told you where to go."

"Well," said Spencer, "I wouldn't have blamed her."

"So do you see much of Natalie now?"

"As much as I can. Well… that's not true, really. I could see her on Saturdays, but what I usually do is spend Saturdays with my girlfriend and then take Nat out on Sundays - play basketball with her or whatever. I have her for a couple of hours after school on Thursdays when I get off work early, and in the summer I get Monday afternoons off to pick her up from tennis… so that's today. Hey, what do you suppose all that racket is?"

It had only been very gradual, so Garrett couldn't pinpoint any one moment at which the noise coming from the room on the floor below had stopped sounding like a raucous early morning swimming session - but now it was just impossible to ignore it any longer. Spencer rose to his feet, and Garrett pushed his wheelchair back from the table.

They made their way down to the swimming pool, and saw that several people were all huddled together in one corner. A couple of teenagers sat dripping on the side, staring cautiously at something in the corner furthest from the crowd of cowering people, while some children in the pool attempted to struggle out of their parents' grip.

"Leave it alone!" one mother said irritably.

"What's the big deal?" wondered Spencer, staring blankly at the creature that was apparently causing so much panic. "It's only a cat!"

"Why is it dressed like that?" asked Garrett, watching as the tabby cat preened itself. It was sitting a safe distance from the puddles of water around the pool, working its tongue around the pearls and blue veil draped over its body.

Then the cat looked up, stared at Spencer and said in a seductive female voice, "Why there you are at last, my love. Will you reject me, like all of my other suitors?"

"Garrett," hissed Spencer. "That cat is talking to me."

"Ah-ha," Garrett said slowly. "Listen, keep her talking - I have to go make a phone call."

Garrett made his way out into the corridor, found a payphone and some change, and dialled the firehouse. It always annoyed him slightly that payphones were clearly designed to be used by people who could stand, but all that really mattered now was that he was able to reach it.

"Hello, Ghostbusters - and do you know how early it is?"

"Sorry, Janine," said Garrett. "Is Conchita there?"

"Um, yeah, I'll fetch her," said Janine, sounding faintly surprised.

Garrett waited for several seconds, and then Conchita's jovial tones buzzed down the phone: "Hi, Garrett!" God, talk about a morning person. "How are you?"

"I'm fine, honey, but there's a little problem at the gym," said Garrett. "It's a talking cat - I wondered if you knew any way to get rid of it."

There was a brief pause, and then, "A talking cat?"

"Yeah."

"Well… what does it look like?"

Garrett gave a brief description of the cat, and told Conchita what it had said to Spencer.

"He needs to tell her he'll marry her," Conchita said firmly.

Garrett blinked. "What?"

"Listen," Conchita said patiently. "She's from a country where everybody hates cats, and the king wants the princess to get married, and she's in love with this poor person, and she has to meet every man in the country starting with the richest, and the first one who says he wants to marry her… gets to marry her."

"Right, I'm with you so far," Garrett said blankly.

"But she wants to marry the poor guy, so the cat's helping her. She's pretending to be the princess so everyone will think she's turned into a cat and not want to marry her. The guy's supposed to say he loves her even though she's a cat - and he does, and they get married. Ok?"

"Oh… ok."

"The princess is probably hiding somewhere - she might come out and fling her arms around him and cry tears of joy."

"Right, well, thank you," said Garrett. "I'll see you soon, then."

"Hey." Janine was suddenly on the phone again. "You'd better get over here fast, Garrett - Egon's discovered something about our case."

Between hanging up and returning to the swimming pool, Garrett just had time to wonder why the cat and the princess had chosen this particular venue to re-enact their story.

"Spence," hissed Garrett. "Tell her you don't care that she's a cat and that you'll… No, wait, don't tell her that - you might have to marry the princess. Tell her you hate cats and you don't want to marry her."

Spencer blinked. "Tell her what?"

"Just do it."

Spencer looked directly at the cat, took a deep breath and said awkwardly, "I hate cats and I don't want to marry you."

The cat's piercing green eyes widened, and she stood up on all fours, saying to no one in particular, "Well there, my dear, I did warn you this would either ensure your happiness forever after or break your heart."

The room was suddenly filled with the sound of someone weeping, and a richly dressed young woman emerged from behind the ladder of one of the diving boards. It wasn't a very good hiding place, in all honesty - but the talking cat had managed to keep everyone's attention away from her.

"You beast!" the girl wept. "I see now that all your promises of love were empty!"

Garrett looked up at Spencer, who was staring open-mouthed at the crying princess. He looked genuinely upset, and Garrett couldn't help wondering if the distraught young woman's words perhaps contained echoes of the Grace saga. The princess then faded away before their eyes. Garrett and Spencer both turned their attention to the cat, who stared at them for a moment, and then stalked out of the room with her chin in the air.

"Um… Spence," Garrett said slowly. "I have to go to work now."

.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

"There you are," Roland said irritably, when Garrett arrived. "Egon's been making us wait until you got here - is it so much trouble to show up for work on time?"

"Chita didn't tell you about the talking cat, then?" Garrett said dryly.

"What? No… no, actually, she's been busy playing with your son."

Garrett blinked in surprise. "Max is here?"

"Jo dropped him off first thing. Apparently she 'forgot' to ask her mom to look after him and there was nobody at her parents' house. It's very irresponsible, if you ask me - you should be sure to make proper arrangements for him."

"I didn't ask you. Why are you being so growly?"

"Growly?" Roland frowned. "I am not being growly - I just want to get on and deal with this… whatever it is. Egon says it's dangerous."

"Right, well - we'd better go find him, then."

Egon was to be found in the rec room, kneeling next to Conchita and listening closely to her retelling of the story of the cat and the princess. Rose was sitting at a discreet distance, examining a page in a lavishly illustrated story book with great scrutiny, while John and Eden tactfully tried to stave off the affections of both Slimer and Max Miller.

"…and then they get married," Conchita said. "And he becomes king. And then Mom says it's terrible the way she just has to hand over all of her assets to her husband."

"It's a stupid story," said Rose, not taking her eyes from her book.

"Max!" called Garrett, and the little boy immediately wandered over to him and started clambering into his lap.

"He's affectionate, isn't he?" remarked Eden, to nobody in particular. "Not like Rose - she doesn't hug anyone."

"Garrett," said Egon, looking up sharply. "Did you instruct Spencer to tell the cat he'd marry it?"

"No," said Garrett, reflecting that one got asked a lot of strange questions working as a Ghostbuster. "It was great advice, Chita, thank you - but I thought maybe it'd be better if he didn't commit himself. He told her he didn't want to marry her."

"What did she say?" Egon and Conchita asked in unison.

"The cat said something to the princess about she warned her it might break her heart."

Conchita nodded. "That's right, she did."

"Then the princess showed up, cried for a bit and vanished."

"Vanished," Egon said slowly. "Right, well… Garrett, Roland, come with me to my laboratory, if you would."

"Lead the way, Doc," said Garrett, turning his chair in the appropriate direction.

"I'll get Janine and ask her to supervise the kids," Roland said pointedly, giving Garrett a very malevolent look.

"Hey," said Garrett, setting Max down on the ground, once Roland had left the room. "Does he seem touchy to you guys?"

"Yes," said Conchita. "Everyone's noticed. Maybe he's still upset about seeing your Spencer friend. Hi, Max," she added, when Max appeared and flung his arms around her.

"Yeah," said Garrett. "That must be it. I really wish he'd get over it."

.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

Egon began by saying, "Garrett, you aren't up to speed with yesterday's events, are you? Eduardo, Kylie - kindly tell Garrett what you discovered yesterday."

Garrett listened as Kylie told him about the encounter with the Little Mermaid, with Eduardo chipping in at odd moments. While she talked, Garrett couldn't help cutting a few glances at Roland, who looked - there was no other word for it - distracted.

"Well," said Egon, "I did analyse the gold nugget you brought me, but now it seems to have disappeared."

"Well, if you will leave gold lying around," said Garrett.

"I believe," Egon went on, "from my findings with the gold, and from the very fact that it vanished - it was apparently only a temporary prop - and from what we know already, that we are dealing with a very old and very dangerous demon. If I'm right, and if we could get rid of it once and for all, that would be very good."

"Why, what does it do?" asked Garrett. "Apart from eating people's grannies."

"No one seems quite sure. It lures people to it, and they never return - nobody knows what becomes of them. It's invisible, and its victims just vanish into thin air. For these reasons, several theorists believe that it doesn't exist at all."

"Seems reasonable," Eduardo remarked.

"But," said Egon, "you saw your mermaid friend rejoining the main body of the entity, didn't you? At least, that is what I believe happened. You see, it lures people by different means: according to legend it has lured children with promises of fun and games, not unlike the Grundle; it has tempted starving people with food - and now, it seems to be attempting to seduce its victims. That's you, Eduardo, and now Spencer with the cat story. It is my belief that it appeared as the Seven Dwarves and commissioned that coffin in order to act out the latter stages of 'Snow White', and find a prince."

"That's a long plan, Egon," remarked Garrett.

"And why fairytales?" asked Kylie. "Why not just pretend to be regular people - do it in ways that are actually likely, and that we might fall for?"

"Well, my theory isn't flawless," said Egon. "However, Kylie, I believe I can answer your question. This entity has no idea what goes on in real life, but it has somehow familiarised itself with popular folktales; we can assume that these stories are all it knows of human romance and courtship."

Roland then spoke for the first time since the meeting had begun: " 'Rumplestiltskin' isn't a love story. What was he doing with my sister?"

"Well," said Egon, "it wanted her baby. Its victims have to be willing to go with it, but perhaps an infant that is voluntarily handed over by its mother does just as well."

"It would have had to wait three months for the birth," said Roland. "Why not pick a mother whose baby's already been born?"

"Perhaps," said Egon, "it didn't think it through. Or perhaps it planned to take the baby then and there, in some unpleasant way - your sister may have had a lucky escape."

Roland's mouth opened, but he fell silent.

"Can you explain the whole big bad wolf thing?" asked Garrett.

"Ah," said Egon. "No. My guess is that it was just hungry."

"Has it eaten people before?"

"Well, how can we know? It might have done, but until now there was no reason to assume that anything consuming people was the same being as this."

"You say its victims have to be willing," said Kylie. "You can't just wander in by mistake - is that it?"

Egon raised his eyebrows. "Wander in? An interesting choice of phrase, Kylie."

"Yeah, well, it was kind of like stepping through a portal. I… thought about trying it."

"Well be glad that you didn't," Egon said sharply. "We would almost certainly never have seen you again."

Kylie turned her eyes away, and Eduardo looked suddenly spooked. Roland was still looking very surly, and apparently had no more to say. Garrett, however, had another question: "The storybook characters are just bits of it - is that what you implied?"

"Not 'bits' of the actual entity exactly, at least according to what we know. You remember the Piper? We're assuming - just assuming, mind you - that it's a little like that: the entity can create other, smaller identities from itself without actually losing anything. A little like when a person sheds skin cells, or spits."

"And how come they disappear?"

"Well," said Egon, "let's consider them one at a time. The wolf, apparently, just gave up and rejoined the main body of the demon. Rumplestiltskin played out his part in the story, as indeed did the Little Mermaid and Spencer's princess, once you prompted him to alter the narrative. They must just fade away if the courtship, or the kidnapping, fails. Assuming I'm right, of course," he added. "Don't forget that we aren't sure."

"What about the knight that was trying to prove his love to Grace?" Garrett persisted. "He definitely didn't go back to that alley, which evidently is where this demon is."

"Now that," said Egon, "I cannot answer."

"Maybe it was…" Garrett cut a glance at Roland. "I think he might have got the idea that Grace was interested in somebody else."

"Who?" Roland asked sharply. "You mean Spencer?"

"No, not Spencer," said Garrett. "Remember we lost that knight before Spence and Natalie showed up. Actually, Roland, I thought I saw Grace checking you out."

Roland suddenly choked out a dry laugh, the forcefulness of which surprised all of them. "She's not interested in me."

"Why wouldn't she be?" asked Kylie.

"It would explain the knight's disappearance, Roland," Egon added levelly.

"Well… maybe."

"You should call her," Garrett said brightly. "Ask her out."

"No."

"Why not? Don't you like her?"

"I like her fine," said Roland. "But she's not interested, I told you."

"But you just said that she… Oh, wait," Garrett said despairingly. "Roland, don't say you told her about what Spencer and his jerk friends did to the synagogue!"

"So what if I did?" snapped Roland.

"So you blew it, you moron! She already knew."

Roland blinked. "What do you mean, she already - "

"He told her. Years ago."

"But then why would she… why would she marry him?"

"They were married?" Kylie asked incredulously. "Wow - Spencer didn't seem the type to marry that young."

"She married him," Garrett said tightly, "because she is a compassionate person and she forgave him for making a mistake. I thought you understood about compassion, Roland."

"Yeah, well, there's mistakes and there's mistakes," Roland said acidly.

"Excuse me," said Egon. "I would remind you that there is a dangerous entity out there."

"Right," Kylie nodded. "Let's get back to that alley, then. Egon, if it is this malevolent demon… can we just shoot it? I mean, it's invisible, but we know vaguely where it is."

"Hmm… that might prove difficult," said Egon. "You won't know how big it is, or whether it's moved at all… I'll try to work on something that can help."

.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

"I think, Kylie," said Garrett, as they all piled into the Ecto-1, "this thing will be surprised to see you. As far as it knows, women occupy the domestic space and it's the men who go out and fight monsters. I'm amazed you let your girls read that stuff, actually."

"I'm not controlling - I don't censor their reading material," Kylie said airily. "As long as they understand that those stories were written by men in a time when women were unjustly kept in the margins of society, and that they are not codes of conduct on which to model themselves, I don't see that it can do any real harm."

"About one more year and then Chita can read Meg Cabot," muttered Roland, pulling the car into gear.

"Meg Cabot?" Kylie wrinkled her nose. "Well, I guess it's ok to read trash as long as you know it's trash."

"Roland," ventured Garrett, from his position in the back of the car, trying to catch Roland's eye in the rear-view mirror. "Grace is an extremely forgiving woman, you know. I'm sure if you just went and apologised…"

"What?" demanded Roland. "What would happen?"

"She'd be really cool about it."

"Oh grow up, Garrett."

"What do you mean?" Garrett said indignantly. "She's a really nice woman, and she obviously likes you - I think you'd be really stupid to blow it."

"I think I'd be really stupid to pursue it," retorted Roland. "I've only met the woman twice - why does it have to be such a big deal?"

"Well," Garrett said churlishly, "maybe if you had a girlfriend you'd lighten up a little."

"There's nothing wrong with being single."

"There is if you've got a perfectly good - "

"Guys," Kylie interrupted. "I really don't wanna have to listen to this all the way to that stupid alley. Maybe we should discuss what we're going to do when we actually get there. Now that I think about it, Egon seemed to imply some standing around waiting."

"For what?" asked Roland.

"Well… for him to ride in on a white horse with some fabulous new invention that'll save the day."

"Egon wouldn't have spent long as a Ghostbuster without figuring some way around invisible entities," said Roland. "He can probably just tweak a few knobs on something."

"Well while he's doing that," said Kylie, "I think we should find out what this thing is actually doing."

"How?" Eduardo asked sceptically.

"Talk to it, of course," said Kylie. "Or part of it. Surely, if we hang around long enough, one of us will be approached by Rapunzel or Cinderella or Prince Charming or someone."

As it transpired, Kylie was absolutely correct. The four of them had been dancing cautiously around the entity, putting their hands as close as they dared to where the PKE meters said the invisible being was, when a small frog suddenly jumped into view.

"You have to kiss that, Kylie," Garrett deadpanned.

"No way," Kylie said flatly. "You kiss it."

Garrett scoffed loudly. "That won't work. It's the Frog Prince, not the Fag Prince."

Kylie winced. "Garrett, honestly."

"He's right though, Ky," said Eduardo.

"And," said Roland, "if you kiss him and he turns into a person, we could talk to him."

"And it's kinda cute - it could be worse," Garrett added brightly.

"I can't believe you're all seriously suggesting I kiss a frog," said Kylie. Then, crouching down to be nearer to the frog, who was now gazing expectantly up at her, she said firmly, "Did you hear that? No!"

The frog blinked forlornly at her, and then disappeared into thin air.

"Where do they go when they vanish?" asked Roland. "Egon said something about being absorbed back into the entity - so why do these ones disappear?"

"I wish we could ask," said Kylie.

"You could have kissed the frog, Ky," Garrett pointed out.

"Garrett," said Roland. "You are absolutely obsessed. Why must you constantly push people to kiss frogs and apologise to people that they clearly don't - "

"Whoa, whoa - guys!" Eduardo interrupted loudly, staring at his PKE meter. "I think it's moving."

"Moving?" echoed Kylie, goggling at her own meter. "Oh my God - you're right!"

"Don't sound so surprised," Eduardo muttered.

"Oh God," Kylie lamented. "We have to get in the Ecto-1 and follow it."

They'd all had some experience of tailing paranormal entities with only their PKE readings to go by, so - besides the odd wrong turn and losing the scent a couple of times - they didn't find it too taxing. The entity was moving for about half an hour before it stopped, in an alley not much more than a hundred yards from the original one.

"What was the point of that?" grumbled Eduardo, as he climbed out of the car.

"I think it was trying to lose us," said Roland. "It knows we're onto it."

"Well, we're still here," said Garrett, loudly and defiantly. "So what's it gonna do now, huh?"

As soon as he had spoken, two figures materialised at the end of the alley. One was an un-striking young man with a shapeless leather bag slung over one shoulder; the other was a very pretty young woman wearing a regal gown.

"Only two," muttered Kylie, watching the figures cautiously. "I'm guessing that guy's mine. Does anybody recognise them?"

Roland shook his head. "They could be anyone."

Then suddenly they all felt a sharp jerk in the pits of their stomachs. Everything was black for a second, or less… and then suddenly Roland found that he was standing almost alone in the alley.

"Oh my God, where did they go?" he exclaimed.

"Your two friends have a little challenge to face," the pretty young woman smiled placatingly. "They will take turns to attempt to retrieve the princess… well, I suppose you can hardly call her a princess. But still, they will both be allowed to try it before the other fellow - he is only a young farmhand."

"And what about you and me?" Roland asked cautiously.

"You and me?" Her smile widened. "Why, we are to get married, of course!"

"What? But I - "

"Don't worry, my love. My father has decided on the way in which you are to choose between myself and my two sisters. You will stand on one side of the door to the great hall, and we on the other. You will reach through a specially hewn hole in the door, touch all of our hands, and then take the hand of the one you wish to marry."

Roland blinked. "Well that seems a strange way of doing it."

"Oh, I know," said the young woman. "And yet it is perfect. For you see, I have cut away the top of my finger in retrieving your lost dagger from the well."

"Ooh, that looks really painful!" Roland winced, examining her proffered right hand.

"But darling, it is ideal. For you see, when you take each of our hands you can - "

"Yes, yes, I get it," Roland said hastily. "But we have a little problem here. I know you're not real."

"I most certainly am real."

"We've been chasing you - you know that."

The young woman raised her eyebrows, and seemed to think for moment. "And now?"

"And now… I just want to talk. Get some answers."

"Well, all right, if you insist. What is it that you wish to ask?"

"My friends," said Roland. "Where are they?"

"In there." She tilted her head towards the building on his right and her left. "It is a very wonderful story. There is a princess hidden away in a castle, and her three suitors must attempt to retrieve her. They meet many trials along the way. Bees is one, wolves another… The trick is to appease them with food and flowers and such, but even if your friends can figure out that much the chances are very slim that they will find the girl. You see she stands quite motionless, in the topmost tower, in a room of veiled figures. These figures are of course, herself, and the most awful beings of Hell. If the man fails to unveil the correct one, he is destroyed by demons and goblins beyond his worst nightmares."

"Oh, I get it," Roland said darkly. "Garrett and Eduardo die along the way, leaving Kylie to be taken away by that… farmhand."

"That is most probably what will happen, yes."

Roland turned on his heel and ran alongside the length of the building, stopping at the first door he came to. He tried the handle, and unsurprisingly found it locked, and so began splintering the wood with the barrel of his proton gun.

"How tiresome you're being," sighed the young woman, following him into the building.

"Greetings, friend," said a voice, and Roland turned to see the young man who had appeared in the alley. "Would you also try your hand at retrieving the princess?"

"Yeah," said Roland, marching over to him. "Can I borrow your bag?"

"There is nothing of value in it," the farmhand said airily. "Merely farm produce that I must take to the market."

"You wouldn't have brought it if it wasn't in some way valuable," said Roland. "Just give me the goddamn bag!"

The young woman with the maimed finger watched with mild interest as Roland and the farmhand began to struggle with the leather shoulder bag. Roland quite quickly won the little tussle, as he was considerably bigger than the farmhand, besides which he had the bright idea of hitting his opponent on the side of the head with his proton gun.

"Are you going to follow me all the way?" Roland asked irritably, as he began to ascend the nearest staircase.

"I thought," said the young woman, "you wanted answers."

"Yeah," muttered Roland. "I do."

On the next floor up he encountered Garrett, futilely shooting blasts of proton fire at a swarm of bees, and getting quite a few nasty looking stings in the process.

"Hey, bees!" Roland called desperately, and to his surprise, the swarm turned onto him. "Here," and he pulled a nice little bunch of pretty pink carnations out of the bag he had wrestled from the farmhand. "Would you, um… like these?"

The bees fell upon the flowers when Roland threw them aside, and he could have sworn he heard the words, "Thank you, friend," in their relentless buzzing.

"Are you all right, Garrett?" Roland asked anxiously, crossing the room to join him.

"Yeah, sure," winced Garrett, sporting about five nasty looking stings on various parts of his face. "Good thing I'm not allergic to bee stings, huh? Who's your friend?"

"I am a princess," the woman said proudly. "The youngest daughter of the king."

"Are you?" said Garrett. "Come on, Ro - we'd better find Ky and Eddie."

Eduardo was in the very next room, being backed into a corner by a pack of hungry looking wolves and crying, "I don't have anything! Come on, this isn't fair!"

"I guess he knows this story too," said Roland, fumbling around in the bag and eventually pulling out a leg of mutton.

"So Eddie," said Garrett, once the wolves had been appeased and Eduardo was attempting to get his breath back. "What happens next?"

"I'd guess we're going to a room full of veiled figures," said Eduardo. "Hopefully Kylie will be there. We get attacked by devils and shit if we pick the wrong one - but since you knew what to do with that bag, the bees ought to show up and help us."

Roland raised his eyebrows. "Really? How?"

"They swarm around the veil we're supposed to lift."

"Oh, good, that'll help."

"There are a few other obstacles, one of which the wolves help with - but I think this version of the story has been cut for time."

"But," said Garrett, "knowing Kylie, she won't be just standing under a veil."

"She probably knows the story," said Roland. "She might realise it's a bad idea to try and move, with demons and goblins and devils all ready to pounce."

"In the story the princess is under some kind of spell," said Eduardo. "She can't move."

"Well," said Roland's would-be girlfriend, "may I suggest we try to find out?"

This seemed a sensible idea, so the three Ghostbusters and the fairytale princess ascended to the top floor. They did not find a room of veiled figures, but rather a room of cloaked demons all screaming shrilly and hurling themselves over and over again at a small figure crouching in the middle of the room.

"Kylie!" exclaimed Eduardo.

"Oh man - whadda we do now?" Garrett panicked.

Kylie, as it happened, didn't seem to be doing too badly on her own. When she saw her three team-mates she began crawling towards them with a ghost trap in one hand, swiping at the heads of any demons that got too near.

"Are you all right?" asked Eduardo, pulling her to her feet the moment she reached them. He noticed that she had a nasty cut across her forehead, and tears in both of her gloves. "We both know this story, Ky - why didn't you just wait for one of us?"

"The demon," panted Kylie, "doesn't want us to get through this - I thought it'd be that… that farmhand who found me. Come on," she said, pushing them out through the door as a screaming she-devil began clawing at her back. "And besides, I wasn't just gonna sit around and wait for a bunch of guys to rescue me - I really hate the way women do that in these stories. Doesn't it drive you nuts?" she added, looking at the princess.

"One grows used to it," replied the princess. "Now then, your friend here says you want answers. I don't mind giving them, since you clearly refuse to lie down - you can't defeat me whether you know what I am or not."

"What happened to all those demons?" Garrett asked suddenly. "Why not follow us?"

"We must have got rid of them," said Kylie, looking questioningly at the princess. "We defied the story, just like Spencer did with that cat - they've given up and gone."

"She's a smart woman," said the princess. "Now, shall we do it here?"

"Yes, let's," said Roland. "What are you?"

"I'm a little piece of a very big demon."

"A piece?" said Garrett. "Not spit?"

"Excuse me?"

"Is the demon missing something without you?"

"It's always missing something," said the princess. "Always. As long as it's complete, it cannot feed - it constantly needs to find food."

"It eats people?" asked Garrett.

"That's oversimplifying it," said the princess. "We feed off the very essence of humanity - a person's most basic instincts."

"Is that why your victims have to be willing?" asked Kylie. "Someone just walking down the street who might bump into you probably isn't exercising very many instincts."

"I suppose that may be part of it," the princess said airily. "The instinct must be at the fore. The being in that alley, the one I am from - its favourite is lust. I do not say love - love is only an instinct if it is that of a mother or a child. The instinct of romance is lust."

"What about the love of a father?" Roland couldn't help asking.

"Ha!" the princess shrieked. "Human males are just like any other mammal - they lose interest once the seed has been planted. Human males and females are fond of the illusion of love, of course - so fond that they make up fantastical stories about it almost on a daily basis. We have listened very carefully to human tales of love, and the ways in which humans most want to be seduced, and utilised these fantasies, as you have seen."

Garrett nodded slowly. "Egon was right - it doesn't have a clue what it's really like."

"But this has proved problematic. People seem to find romance and courtship confusing, and confusion doesn't do so well as lust, hate, anger… Fear, now that's a good one."

"Hence the wolf?" asked Roland.

"Indeed. And the plan to take that woman's baby - have you heard about that? I love that story. Love, hate, fear, anxiety, despair… too bad she didn't fall for it."

"Wait a minute," said Garrett. "What do you mean, 'the being in that alley'? Are you implying there's more than one?"

"Of course there's more than one. People vanish all the time, all over the world - where do you think they go?"

"Oh God," sighed Roland.

"You can never defeat any of them, though… any of us. I've watched and listened - your weapons are useless unless it's complete. Isn't that what you said? And we're never complete. Never ever."

"All right, all right, we get the picture," Eduardo said irritably.

"So are there more of you?" asked Garrett. "Right now? Wandering all over the world, trying to make people fall in love with them? Or lust, I should say," he added.

"Like I said, that doesn't seem to work very well," said the princess. "We got one with the old sleeping princess trick, but it's better to try and invoke fear. We know many ways of making people afraid, but we were doing stories anyway, and we do enjoy the one about the wolf who dresses as a human female and the stupid child doesn't even notice."

"How… how else do you make people afraid?" Kylie asked slowly.

"Oh, all kinds of ways. Vicious animals that don't dress up; people with weapons; war, sickness, famine… and people run away from them, right into our metaphorical hands."

"Things we'd never spot in a million years as being paranormal," Kylie said quietly.

"You should give up and go home. You'll be all right - you know what to watch out for now. But you can't defeat it. It'll never be complete. There are others of me out there right now, making people afraid, making them angry… and there are so many much better things that I could be doing. So I shall bid you farewell."

With these words, the princess disappeared. Kylie instinctively looked at her PKE meter and deduced that the entity was still there for a few short seconds - just invisible.

"Well that was pretty sinister," remarked Garrett. "How can we ever trust anything we see ever again?"

"Maybe everyone in New York should carry a PKE meter," said Eduardo.

Garrett shook his head. "Everyone in the world - you heard what she said about there being others. I don't like this."

"But we can at least get rid of that one, surely," Kylie said desperately. "If we could just find some way of making it complete…"

"This is a waste of time - we have to get back out there," Roland said urgently. "You heard her - it's out there picking off victims right now," and he made for the door without waiting to be answered.

.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

"Right," said Roland, once they were on the move again. "So far, they haven't strayed too far from the main entity - I think Tara' apartment was the furthest it's gone. Or maybe Grace's house - I think they're about equidistant from that original alley."

"Guys, how can we do this forever?" asked Garrett. "I mean, I hate to be negative, but I really don't see any way that we can - "

"I'm getting a reading," said Kylie. "Turn left the first chance you get, Roland."

A shrill, terrified scream cut across the air before Roland had a chance to turn left. He estimated that the scream had come from within a few hundred yards, and made a split second decision to stop the car and jump out.

All four Ghostbusters were out of the car and ready to follow the sound of the scream when someone - presumably the person who had screamed - started shouting for help.

"Does that voice sound familiar to anyone?" asked Garrett, propelling his wheelchair frantically as his three team-mates sprinted towards the sound.

"Yeah," panted Roland. "I can't place it, though."

When they found the screamer, however, Roland recognised her at once, and quietly chided himself for not placing the voice. It had definitely been the voice of a little girl; he should have realised sooner that it belonged to Natalie Daniels. She was now running frantically into the path of the four Ghostbusters, away from the very same wolf that they had encountered the day before, this time without its Grandma costume. Natalie was running awkwardly, wincing and clutching her right hand to her chest, while the wolf stood looking dazed beside a severely misshapen tennis racquet.

Natalie skidded to a halt in front of Roland and stared up at him with wide, terrified eyes. Until this point she seemed not to have noticed that the Ghostbusters had arrived. Then, as the wolf began snarling and inching forwards, she ducked behind Roland and said shakily, "Help me!"

"Natalie, what are you doing here all by yourself?" Roland asked gently.

"And what did you do to your hand?" asked Garrett, joining the girl behind Roland's back. "Can I see that? Ooh - that wrist looks broken to me."

"Oh gee, you think?" snapped Natalie, breathing heavily and blinking back tears. "I had to hit it over the head - I broke my tennis racquet too."

"You can always get a new tennis racquet," said Roland, turning round to face her.

"Tennis… hey, Spence was supposed to be picking you up!" exclaimed Garrett. "Where the hell is he?"

"I don't know!" wailed Natalie.

"All right, honey, it's ok - the first thing we have to do is take you to our headquarters and patch up that wrist," Roland said soothingly, cutting a quick glance at the wolf to see what it was up to. Kylie and Eduardo were keeping it busy by throwing the lids of some metal trashcans at it. "Our car's just around the corner."

"Will you call my mom?" sniffed Natalie.

"Of course we will."

"She's at home but she's working - she might only answer her cell phone."

"Do you know the number?" asked Roland.

Natalie swiped at a tear with her good hand, and nodded.

"All right - we'll call her when we get to the firehouse. The car's this way."

He put his hands on her shoulders and steered her gently in the direction of the Ecto-1, Garrett following closely behind. Roland put Natalie in the back of the car and then sat beside her, meaning that there was a brief moment of confusion when Kylie and Eduardo came haring round the corner. The former then scrambled into the driver's seat, and the car screeched away just in time to avoid a flat tire courtesy of a nasty set of canine teeth.

.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

"NATALIE!" screamed Grace, bursting through the main entrance to the firehouse and skidding to a halt in front of where her daughter sat on the reception desk. "Oh my God - are you all right? What the hell were you thinking, going off on your own like that?"

"I waited for Dad," said Natalie, her voice becoming muffled as her face was pressed mercilessly against her mother's breasts. "But then the wolf showed up."

"How long were you waiting?"

"Oh… not long."

"How long, Natalie?"

"Well, about twenty… five… minutes… or, or so."

"Oh my goodness, honey, I'm so sorry," said Grace, tears welling in her eyes.

"It's not your fault, Mom," said Natalie.

Kylie and Eduardo were upstairs watching the children, but Slimer, Egon, Janine, Roland and Garrett were all hovering nearby. Roland just stared at Grace and Natalie for a few moments, and then ventured towards them.

"Excuse me," he said gently. "Grace… she's had a scare, but she's all right apart from the broken wrist. Garrett's a physiotherapist and Egon's all kinds of doctors, including a physician," and he indicated Egon with a sweep of the hand. "They bandaged her up and organised that sling, but you might want to take her to a hospital."

"Oh I will, I will," Grace gabbled frantically. "Where the hell was Spencer?"

"I called him," Garrett ventured timidly.

"And?"

"Well…"

Garrett looked away awkwardly, not wanting to tell tales. Fortunately he was saved the trouble when Spencer himself blundered through the door, his tousled hair and dazed expression making him look rather as though he had just suffered an electric shock.

"Natalie!" he exclaimed. "Oh my God, I am so - "

He was cut off abruptly when Grace suddenly raised her hand and swiped him on the side of the head, violently enough to send him reeling a little to the left. Roland cut a quick glance at Natalie, who was staring at her parents in open-mouthed amazement.

"WHERE WERE YOU?" screamed Grace.

"Grace, I'm sorry!" Spencer said desperately, as he regained his balance. "I fell asleep."

"YOU FELL ASLEEP?" squeaked Grace.

"I was with Stephanie. We were - "

"I can well imagine what you were doing and I don't want to hear about it!"

"No, no, we weren't - we were watching a movie," gabbled Spencer. "She keeps making me watch Pirates of the Caribbean Two even though it totally sucks ass - I just sort of… drifted off."

"God, what a jerk," Roland muttered to Garrett.

"Yeah," murmured Garrett. "Pirates Two is cool."

"You don't just drift off when you've got a seven-year-old - "

"Mom," said Natalie, dropping down from the desk and walking towards her parents. "I think he gets the picture."

"Yeah, yeah, I do," said Spencer, crouching down and putting his hands on Natalie's shoulders. "Oh God, honey, I can't tell you how sorry I am! Are you ok?"

"I broke my wrist," said Natalie.

Spencer looked about ready to throw up. "Oh God…"

"And my tennis racquet."

"I'll buy you a new one."

"That won't make it ok," snapped Grace. "Spencer, how can I ever trust you to look after her again?"

"Oh Grace, come on, you're not gonna stop me - "

"Can we talk about that later?" asked Natalie.

Grace took a deep breath, and then nodded slowly. "Right, honey, sure, yes… it'd be better to talk about it when we've all calmed down."

"Mom," said Natalie. "Roland really looked after me until you got here. I know you're mad at him about whatever happened when he came over yesterday, but he's actually a really great guy once you get to know him."

Spencer looked up sharply, and a fleeting look passed between him and Roland. Then Grace took Roland's arm and led him several yards away from the rest of the group, saying, "Thank you for taking care of her…"

"Oh, beautiful," Spencer said bitterly. "She wants to get you a new dad now."

"She doesn't," said Natalie.

"Spence," said Garrett, noticing that Egon and Janine were beginning to trickle away, and Slimer had already gone. "You're a complete idiot - I hope Grace can forgive you."

"She won't stop me seeing him," said Natalie, grabbing the sleeve of Spencer's t-shirt with her left hand. "She can't!"

"She won't, honey," Spencer said soothingly. "She wouldn't do that to you."

"So Natalie, what's this Stephanie person like?" Garrett asked brightly, sensing that the time had come to move the conversation along.

"She's a lot of fun," said Natalie.

"Yeah? Is she pretty?"

"Sure, kinda."

"I'll introduce you," said Spencer, just as Grace's shadow fell across him and Natalie, and he rose quickly to his feet.

"All right, Natalie, let's go home," said Grace. "Spence… you can come and spend the afternoon with her while I'm working, if you like."

Spencer's jaw dropped. "Really?"

"Yeah, well, as long as you don't lose her or burn the house down or - "

"Grace, I won't, I promise."

"Whoa, Roland - what did you say to her?" Garrett asked incredulously, once Spencer, Grace and Natalie were out of the door.

"Oh, that wasn't me," said Roland. "She just calmed down a lot while we were talking."

"Yeah? What did you talk about? Did you apologise for the whole, um… Spence-is-racist thing?"

Roland nodded. "Yeah, I did. I said it was none of my business and I shouldn't have interfered and I knew he wasn't racist really…"

"And?" pressed Garrett.

"And what?"

"And did you get her number?"

"We have her number, Garrett. Actually we have two."

"Ah-ha," Garrett said dryly. "Did you ask her out?"

"Why are you so interested?" asked Roland.

"Well because… because you're my friend and I care about you, I guess. Hey… what are we gonna do about that demon?"

Roland's face fell, and he shook his head despairingly. "Y'know, it's been damn near ten years… I think we were long overdue a failed investigation. This thing is un-trappable until Egon finds a way of dealing with incomplete ecto-matter, but… well, I wouldn't be surprised to find that it's moved on, if I'm honest, after all that. It'll be just floating around, picking on people's basic instincts, no one ever spotting it…"

"Mmm," Garrett said morosely. "But… we can keep trying, can't we?"

"Well, we can always keep trying."

Then suddenly Garrett's tone lifted considerably as he said, "Oh listen, Ro, you might wanna be warned: last I heard, Grace was kinda… no players on the golf course without a full membership, if you get my drift."

Roland blinked. "What?"

"Oh… forget it," said Garrett. "All being well, you'll find out soon enough."

THE END